Last checked: October 2026 (every price opened on 25 Oct 2026). Published by Increditors, a video editing agency, and includes our own services.
Video production costs $1,500 to $5,000 for social content, $4,500 to $20,000 for a corporate or explainer video and $15,000 to $50,000+ for a commercial, per Vidico’s 2026 guide. Most business projects land at $3,000 to $25,000. Freelancers charge $600 to $1,200 a filming day; subscriptions start near $1,000 a month.
Project type sets the price band more than any other variable: social clips and simple training cost $500 to $5,000, corporate, product and explainer videos $3,000 to $25,000, and commercials and brand films start around $15,000. Your route matters next: a local videographer averages $600 to $870 on Thumbtack, a boutique agency $3,000 to $25,000 a video, and a subscription is priced by the month. Below: 85 sourced figures, a cost estimator and a pricing sheet.
- What video production pricing covers
- Video production pricing at a glance
- Video production rates by project type
- Published starting prices from production companies
- Pricing by production route
- Cost estimator and sample pricing sheet
- What moves the price
- Choosing a budget by need
- Where editing fits in the budget
- Hidden costs and how to cut the bill
- How we picked (and our disclosure)
- FAQ
- About this guide
What video production pricing covers
Video production covers everything between an idea and a finished file: planning, filming, and post-production. This page is the generic ladder across project types. It differs from our video ad production cost guide, which prices paid video ads, and from our corporate video production cost guide, which prices corporate films only. For animation we point to the explainer animation cost index and the 3D animation cost guide; for crew and day rates see what a videographer costs.
Vendors draw the line in different places, so quotes look inconsistent. Three stages recur:
Shares as stated in the Vidico cost guide, read on provider site, 25 Oct 2026. Budget splits vary by project.
💡 Pro tip: Ask which of the three stages a quote covers. A $600 local package and a $20,000 studio quote can both be “video production” while covering different stages.
We are a video editing agency that handles post-production; we do not shoot, and the prices below come from companies that do.
Video production pricing at a glance
Eighty-five price rows sit behind this page, every one read on a vendor’s own page and dated 25 Oct 2026. The table below condenses them into one ladder. For editing-only prices, see our video editing pricing survey.
Our summary of the tables below. Read on provider sites, 25 Oct 2026.
Video production rates by project type
Project type is the first filter because it sets crew, runtime and post-production load. These figures are the production companies’ own published ranges, split by what is being made.
Vidico’s cost and videographer guides are dated 21 Sep 2026; its corporate page is undated. All read on provider sites, 25 Oct 2026.
Explainer and animation
Animation has its own price curve. Vidico lists a 60-second 2D vector explainer at $2,500 to $10,000, whiteboard at $1,500 to $5,000, motion graphics at $1,500 to $6,000, live-action at $5,000 to $20,000+ and 3D at $5,000 to $25,000+. Wyzowl’s quotation survey found a median animated explainer quote of $5,400 and a mean of $8,457 with outliers removed, and Demo Duck says explainers run $1,500 to $50,000 and recommends at least $16,000.
Commercials
Vidico splits commercial production by tier: DIY and AI tools $0 to $5,000, local and small-business $3,000 to $15,000, regional professional $15,000 to $50,000, and national $50,000 to $500,000+. It adds that most B2B companies spend $5,000 to $50,000. Media spend to air the spot is a separate bill; see the video ad production cost guide.
Published starting prices from production companies
Some companies publish a “from” price per style or plan instead of a range. These are floors, not quotes: the real number depends on scope.
Read on provider sites, 25 Oct 2026. Thumbtack’s page text is dated 2020 but its price widget was live when we read it. Wyzowl’s survey conclusions are framed as 2024 data. Lemonlight’s pricing page returned 404, so only its style pages are used.
For how these providers compare at real scope, read our Vidico pricing breakdown, Lemonlight review, B2B video agency cost and best video production services.
Pricing by production route
The same video costs different amounts depending on who makes it. Here is the ladder by route, with each figure from the vendor named.
Read on provider sites, 25 Oct 2026. Shootsta’s “$5,000 to $30,000+ per video” is its own claim about traditional agencies.
⚠️ Watch the unit: “$3,000 to $10,000 per minute” and “$3,000 to $10,000 per video” are different bills. A three-minute film at the first rate is $9,000 to $30,000 (our arithmetic).
Our cost per finished minute benchmarks and the B2B video agency pricing index translate agency prices to a per-minute view, and video editing subscriptions compared covers the monthly model.
Cost estimator and sample pricing sheet
Use this as a video production cost estimator: list every line a quote should contain, then check each against a published range. The sheet below prices a one-day, three-to-five person shoot with a short finished video, with each line from the Vidico cost guide.
Ranges from the Vidico cost guide, read on provider site, 25 Oct 2026. Editing is 10 to 30 hours at $75 to $150 an hour, multiplied by us.
Compare the total with Vidico’s published $4,500 to $20,000 for a medium corporate or explainer video. Our estimator’s low end ($7,050) sits above that range’s floor and its high end ($36,000) above its ceiling because it stacks every line at once; few projects need all nine lines at the top of their ranges. Treat the sheet as a checklist and ask each vendor to mark every line included, excluded or optional.
📌 Pricing sheet rule: A quote with one lump sum and no lines is the hardest to compare. Ask for the nine lines above, plus revisions: Vidico lists additional rounds at $500 to $2,000 each and says most quotes include 1 to 2.
What moves the price
Five variables explain most of the gap between a $3,000 and a $50,000 project:
- Crew and days: one videographer is $600 to $1,200 a day; a three-to-five person crew is $2,500 to $8,000 (Vidico).
- Talent: on-screen talent is $500 to $1,500 a day and voiceover $300 to $1,000 a session (Vidico).
- Location and equipment: studio or location rental is $500 to $3,000 a day and equipment $1,000 to $4,000 (Vidico).
- Animation and motion graphics: $500 to $5,000 for titles and graphics, more for custom animation.
- Usage and licensing: stock footage runs $50 to $500+ a clip and production music $50 to $300+ a track (Video Editing Company).
Vidico cost guide, Vidico 30-second commercial guide and Video Editing Company commercial cost page, read on provider sites, 25 Oct 2026.
Choosing a budget by need
Pick the row that matches your need, then budget within the published range for it.
Read on provider sites, 25 Oct 2026. Video Editing Company retainer plans are $5,000, $9,500 and $16,000 a month.
Volume changes the math
Video Editing Company’s commercial cost page works through eight videos a month: $12,000 from freelancers at $1,500 each, $40,000 to $64,000 from a boutique agency at $5,000 to $8,000 each, and $9,500 on its Core retainer, about $1,188 a video. Those are scenarios from a vendor that sells retainers, so rerun them with your own volume.
Where editing fits in the budget
If your footage already exists, you only buy the post-production slice. Vidico puts that at 25 to 35% of a typical budget; applied to its $4,500 to $20,000 corporate range that is about $1,125 to $7,000 (our arithmetic). That is why many B2B teams film in-house or with a local crew and hand the cut to a video editing company.
Increditors is a video editing agency with Clutch 5.0 from 12 reviews, 1,700+ videos delivered and 340+ clients, including Emerj and The Trajectory, TuMeke, Riley Coleman, Trade with Pat, VYVE Wellness, Dr. Jonathan Tam, eSafetyFirst, Rhythm Monster and a GoDaddy pilot. Read the TuMeke case study and our other case studies; our video editing cost guide lists published editing prices.
For retainer editing on a B2B or SaaS account, Video Editing Company is a premium, dedicated-team option and a division of Increditors; its public plans are $5,000, $9,500 and $16,000 a month, month-to-month. Both of us edit; neither shoots, so pair either with a production partner from the tables above.
✅ Our own bias: We sell editing, so we have an interest in you separating the edit from the shoot. If you need cameras, crew and a script, a production company on this page fits and we do not.
Hidden costs and how to cut the bill
- Revisions: additional rounds cost $500 to $2,000 each, and most quotes include 1 to 2 (Vidico).
- Captions: closed captions and subtitles run $1 to $3 per minute of video (Vidico).
- Reshoots: Video Editing Company lists a reshoot at $1,500 to $8,000 in new crew time, location fees and talent recall.
- Versions: cuts and crops for other platforms can add $200 to $800 per version at agencies that bill per deliverable (Video Editing Company).
Three ways to cut the bill
- Write the first draft of the script yourself; Vidico says this saves $500 to $1,500 on an explainer.
- Bundle shoot days and capture extra footage for cutdowns, so one crew day feeds several assets.
- Consolidate feedback into one pass; Video Editing Company’s example shows a $6,000 post-production line becoming $9,000+ after three separate review rounds.
⚠️ Contract check: Confirm in writing who owns raw footage, project files and music licences, and whether revisions, captions and platform versions are included.
How we picked (and our disclosure)
We opened each vendor’s own pages on 25 Oct 2026. A source entered the tables if it published at least one public price for a video project type, route or cost line. We dropped any source we could not retrieve: the Lemonlight pricing page returned 404 and the ContentBeta pricing page returned 403 to our script, so neither is used. We never estimated a price.
- Published price: a figure on the vendor’s own public page, read and string-checked on 25 Oct 2026.
- Arithmetic labelled: every total or share we calculated is marked “our arithmetic”.
- Sample: 85 price rows from 18 pages across 9 providers, kept with source URLs in a dataset we hold.
⚠️ Disclosure: This guide is published by Increditors, a video editing agency, and includes our own services. Video Editing Company is our division, so it is not independent. Data date: 25 Oct 2026. No vendor paid for placement and none reviewed this page.
FAQ
How much does video production cost?
Vidico’s 2026 guide puts social content at $1,500 to $5,000, corporate and explainer videos at $4,500 to $20,000, and commercials and brand films at $15,000 to $50,000+, with most standard business projects at $3,000 to $25,000. Lemonlight lists video styles from $1,500 to $10,000. Figures read on each vendor’s page on 25 Oct 2026.
How much does video production cost per minute?
Vidico lists per-minute pricing from $500 to $20,000+, with most corporate and explainer work between $1,000 and $10,000 per finished minute. Animation studios charge $3,000 to $10,000 a minute and freelance animators $500 to $3,000 on the same Vidico page. Per-minute rates vary mainly with crew size and motion graphics.
What is a normal day rate for a video crew?
Vidico lists a freelance videographer at $600 to $1,200 per filming day and a three-to-five person crew at $2,500 to $8,000 per day. Video Editing Company’s commercial cost page puts a professional crew member at $750 to $2,500+ per day. Equipment, studio and talent are priced separately in most quotes.
Is a subscription cheaper than paying per project?
At volume it can be. Shootsta lists subscriptions from US$1,000 a month, while Video Editing Company’s own worked example prices eight videos a month at $12,000 from freelancers, $40,000 to $64,000 from a boutique agency and $9,500 on its Core retainer. Those are vendor-supplied scenarios, so test them against your own volume.
What is the cheapest way to get a professional video?
Thumbtack lists a national average fixed price of $600 to $870 for local video producers, and a Lorray Digital Media package shows a one-minute video for $499. Lemonlight’s Curated style starts at $1,500 for work built from existing footage. Cheaper routes trade away crew time, polish or turnaround.
Does Increditors produce video or only edit it?
Increditors is a video editing agency: we edit footage you or your production partner shoot, and we publish no production prices on this page. If you already have raw footage, editing is a fraction of a production budget, and our video editing cost guide covers it. Book a call and we will scope your project.
📅 Last checked and changelog: Last checked October 2026. Changelog: 25 Oct 2026 — first published (85 price rows read 25 Oct 2026).
About this guide
The Increditors editorial team is the group of editors and strategists behind our video work for marketing teams and founders, with 1,700+ videos delivered. We build price guides from the vendors’ own pages and name every source and date.
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